Nova Scotia is a province in Eastern Canada. It is a
peninsula
connected
to the mainland by an isthmus. It is one of the Atlantic Provinces of
Canada.
It's capital and largest city is Halifax (population of 114,000). The
population
of Nova Scotia is just under a million people.

Halifax, the capital and chief port of Nova Scotia, is situated on a
small
peninsula in Halifax Harbor. The city is not only Nova Scotia's
administrative
center and chief port but is the major manufacturing city. Across the
harbor
and connected to Halifax by the Angus L. Macdonald and A. Murray MacKay
bridges is Dartmouth, Nova Scotia's second largest city.

History
of Nova Scotia

Home to the native
Abnaki and
Mi'kmaqs,
Nova Scotia was explored first
by John Cabot (picture at left) and
claimed for Great Britain in 1497 and later by
Giovanni
da Verrazzano in 1524 and by Jacques Cartier ten years later and
claimed
it for France. Nova Scotia was originally
settled by the French in 1605
and was called Arcadia. The French who traded furs got along with the
Native
Americans. Great Britain, basing their claim to Acadia on Cabot's
voyage,
sent men to expel the French. King James I of England changed the name
from Acadia to Nova Scotia (latin for New Scotland). France would
retake
Nova Scotia in 1632.

France and England would fight over Nova Scotia during the four major
wars
fought between these two countries in the later 17th Century and earl
18th
Century. At the
conclusion of Queen Anne's War in 1713, Britain
received
control of Nova Scotia. The French tried to drive the British out in
1745
during King
William's War but were unsuccessful. In 1755, during the
French
and Indian War, 6,000 French Acadian settlers were driven out of Nova
Scotia
(some settled in present day New Orleans). Also during the war, the
British
captured the French fortress city of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.
At the end of the French and Indian War, France lost all it's
possessions
in Canada.

Halifax was a major port for the British army and navy. During the
American
Revolution, thousands of colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain
migrated to Nova Scotia. During the Napolianic
Wars
and the War of
1812, Nova Scotia's economy grew. In
1839, Samual Cunard of Halifax started a
steampowered shipping service across the Atlantic to England. Of
course, this developed into Cunard Lines, that has such ships as the
Queen Elizabeth 2 and the Queen Mary 2.

Today, Halifax (called Halifax Regional Municipality or HRH) has
372,679
people. Some of its more famous residents in recent years are hockey
superstar Sidney Crosby and actress Ellen Page (Juno and Inception). Its climate is heavily
influenced by its location on Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast.
Temperatures can average around 30 degrees in winter and 75 degrees in
summer.

If you want to see some hockey, go to the Halifax Metro
Centre and see the Halifax
Mooseheads. The major junior ice hockey team plays in the Quebec
Major Junior Hockey League. They play in the Halifax Metro Centre near
the Old Town Clock which seats 10,600.

Debbie and I spent a week long vacation in Nova Scotia in August of
2001.
We flew here, but you can drive also (it's just a long drive). If you
do
drive, you can take the Cat Ferry
from Bar Harbor, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and save over 600 miles
of driving in under three hours. It's not cheap, a one way ticket for a
family and car can run about $255.

Halifax

We stayed in Halifax for most of the week, but one
day we rented
a car
and drove down to Peggy's Cove, Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. We had a room
in an old Victorian hotel called the Waverley
Inn on Barrington Street (one of Halifax's main streets so it's an
easy walk to the waterfront). The Inn was built in 1866. The rooms are
decorated in the Victorian style and are full of antiques (If you visit
the website, look at the photo tour of the rooms.) The people who run
the
hotel are very friendly and helpful. They serve a nice breakfast in the
morning. Just sitting in the lobby takes you back a hundred years, as
does
the staircase leading to the second floor. An interesting Waverley fact
is famed Irish poet Oscar Wilde once stayed there during a visit to
Halifax. You can
stay in his room
(I believe he's checked out).
When Wilde came
to Canada, he was reportedly asked by a customs officer if he had anything
to declare, at which Oscar replied, "Nothing but my genius!" We had a
great
room with a canopy bed on the second floor in the front of the Inn next
to the room where Oscar's slept. The best thing is that the rates are
very
reasonable - our room was around $130 (in Canadian dollars) a night.

Halifax is a pleasant city. It is very clean and, like most Canadian
cities,
is full of flowers. It has some skyscrapers (30 stories at best), but
mostly
it is an old city. The waterfront is fun to walk around. What I
didn't
know is that the harbor and it's tugboats were the inspiration for
"Theodore
the Tugboat". Debbie thought I was going to start watching the show.
They
have an exhibit in the Maritime Museum (brown building next to the
Canadian
flag in center of the picture at the top of this page) with the set of
the show and all of the characters including Theodore. The architecture
of Halifax's South End is renowned for its grand Victorian houses while
the West End and North End, Halifax have many blocks of well preserved
wooden residential houses with notable features such as the "Halifax
Porch".

Halifax was
founded on June 21, 1749 below a glacial hill that would later be named
Citadel Hill. The outpost was named in honor of George Montague-Dunk,
2nd Earl of Halifax (1716 - 1771), who was the President of the British
Board of Trade. He was a favorite of King George III and his nephew,
Frederick Lord North was the Prime Minister during the American
Revolution. Since he had no children when he died, there are no more
Earls of Halifax's.

This is the Old
Town Clock (you can see the end of the Halifax Metro Centre - home
of the Mooseheads - to the left of the clock). It's one of the more
famous landmarks in Halifax. It
was
ordered to be built by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. He was a bigshot
here
at one time. He was a very organized person who didn't want the people
to be late for work (You can see this is Debbie's type of person.) It
has
been around since 1803. The clock is on a hillside overlooking the
town.
Behind the Clock Tower is downtown Halifax and the harbor beyond. If
you
continue up the hill from the tower you come to The Citadel.

The
Citadel - built by the British in 1856 to keep out those pesky
American's
(now, of course, they want us to come in) is on the hilltop above the
city
(you can drive up or walk up the stairs like we did). It is the 4th in
a series of forts built since 1749. This was England's main seaport in
America well before the American
Revolution. The original was built to protect Halifax from the French
who
controlled the rest of Canada
(until the British took it after the
French
and Indian War). The fort was never tested - Debbie and I thought about
it, but we figured, why ruin it's perfect record. It's the biggest
historical
tourist attraction in Canada. At 12 o'clock, they fire the noon day
cannon
from here (Of course, when else would they fire a noon day gun). You
can
see the clock in the upper left corner of the picture (which, by the
way,
I didn't take).

The Citadel was once guarded by the 78th
Highland Regiment (from 1869 to 1871). Now they have guides
(even
kids, as you see in the picture), who recreate this by dressing and
simulating
life of the Highlanders. These guys above were nice enough to pose for
me. Debbie loves the bagpipes. They have a parade and bagpipe concert
in
the fort. The also have a lone bagpiper who walks around the parapets
and
plays. They have a museum in the fort telling about life in Halifax
over
the past few centuries.

On our first day there, I actually got Debbie out on a sailboat (Debbie
is not a big fan of boats.) It was a 75-foot sailboat called the Mar
II. We headed out to the mouth of the harbor, but the wind didn't
co-operate
to well. You can see the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor on the
horizon
in this picture. Even though we didn't get as far as we would have
liked
too, it was very relaxing. They shut the engines off and we kind of
floated
with the current. Every so often a light breeze we push us a little.
Once
you get outside of the city, it's all trees.

We actually went out on Halifax harbor 5 times while we were there.
This
was the first. We also did a harbor cruise. Another day, we went out on
the Harbor
Hopper.
These are old Vietnam-era amphibious boats. They take you on a tour
through
the streets than down into the harbor. They are very popular and you
have
to reserve your tickets (ticket booths are on the waterfront) a day in
advance (but be aware - they will want you to make frog noises when you
pass other tourists groups). We also crossed the harbor on the ferry
and
finally we took The Bluenose II (the national tall ship of Canada). On
another day, we walked across the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge. Its a
large suspension bridge that crosses the harbor to the town of
Dartmouth (now part of the HRH).

We took a tour of the Parliamentary
Building. Halifax is the capital of Nova Scotia so this is like
their
state house. It was very interesting since they mirror the British
parliamentary
system. Not many other people find it very interesting since the
building
didn't have too many tourist in it.

Another historical point of interest in Halifax is the "Old
Burying Ground" cemetery of St. Paul's Church. It's on Barrington
Street,
about four blocks from the Waverley Inn. This is an old cemetery, not
the
one the Titanic victims were buried in. It dates from the founding of
Halifax
to the early 19th Century. One of it's more famous people interred here
is Major
General Robert Ross. He is famous for being the general in charge
of
the British troops that captured Washington D.C. on August 24, 1814
during
the War of 1812 and was responsible for giving the orders to burn the
Executive
Mansion, the U.S. Capital and other government buildings in the
nation's
capital. A thunderstorm later in the day saved the buildings from being
completely destroyed. The Executive Mansion was rebuilt and then
painted
white to cover the burn marks on the outside granite and forever giving
it the new name, "The White House." In defense of Ross, he was never
very
happy carrying out these orders, unlike British Vice-Admiral
Sir George Cockburn who was very happy to spread the torch. Ross
died
two weeks later on September 12, killed by an American sniper, when the
British advanced on Baltimore. They were stopped here at Ft. McHenry
(remember
rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air but the flag was still
there
in the dawn's early light). General Ross' body was put into a barrel of
rum (to preserve it) for the trip back to Ireland (where he was from)
on
the H.M.S. Tonnant, but since the British were preparing for their
attack
on New Orleans (A British military disaster), Ross was taken to Halifax
and buried here instead where you can see his grave.

We spent a rainy morning in the The
Maritime Museum. In addition to the Theodore exhibit, they have an
exhibit on exploring shipwrecks which was very interesting. Two of it's
main attractions are the Halifax Wrecked exhibit in the Halifax
Explosion
of 1917 and the Titanic exhibit which includes artifacts from the ship.

Halifax was involved in two major disasters in it's history. In 1912,
after
the RMS Titanic sank, the ships that went out to scoop up the victims
floating
out in the ocean were from Halifax. In fact, 150 of the 209 bodies that
were recovered are buried in one of Halifax's three cemeteries (Of
course,
we visited two of them) - Fairview
Cemetery has the most (121 victims - mostly crew members and Third
Class passengers) followed by Mt.
Olivet Catholic Cemetery (19 victims). There are 10 more at the
Jewish
Cemetery, but we weren't able to get there. Many of the victims are
still
unidentified.

In the Fairview Cemetery, there is the grave of James
Dawson an Irishman who worked on the Titanic pushing coal (one of
the
worst jobs on board the ship). Since his grave only has "J. Dawson" on
it, many people, especially girls, assume it to be Jack Dawson from the
movie "Titanic". There are flowers and other items from young female
admirers.
Also in the cemetery is Jack
Hume who played the violin in the Titanic's band. In Mt. Olivet
Catholic
Cemetery is the grave of J.
Fred Preston Clarke who was the Bass Violist on the Titanic.
Titanic's
orchestra was famous for staying on the Titanic playing until the ship
went down. All of it's eight members were lost. The band leader Wallace
Hartley's body was also recovered but is buried in Ireland. The
cemeteries
are on some Halifax tours. The Maritime Museum has an exhibit on the
sinking,
including some artifacts they recovered (like a deck chair shown in the
photograph).

The other disaster was on December 16, 1917 during World War I. A
French
ammunition ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with another ship, caught
fire
and exploded in Halifax harbor. It was the largest man-made explosion
until
the Atomic bomb. The ship disintegrated and the explosion instantly
killed
1,900 people (this later rose to over 2,000 as people died from their
injuries),
injuring over 9,000 and flattened almost two square miles of the city.
To make matters even worse, the next day, Halifax was hit with a
blizzard
that dumped 16 inches of snow on what was
left of the city. The
Maritime
Museum has an exhibit
on that too including part of a ship's anchor, weighing over half a
ton,
that was thrown for two miles by the explosion. There is a very good
website,
put together by a local high school, with more in-depth explanations
and
pictures at halifaxexplosion.org

A fun experience and a must see in Halifax is the Alexander
Keith's Brewery tour. The brewery is in downtown Halifax near the
waterfront at 1496 Lower Water
Street. Alexander Keith was born in Scotland in 1795. He and his family
immigrated to Nova Scotia in 1817. At the age of 25, he established a
brewery in Halifax in 1820. He created India Pale Ale. Keith became a
prominante member of Halifax society and became their mayor and a
director of the Bank of Nova Scotia. He was also a member of the Nova
Scotia legislature before he died in 1873. The one-hour tour of
the brewery is great. They use period costume actors to portray a
trip through the original brewery around the year 1863 with music
and games. It is a lot of fun and you
can bring kids along. They just won't get any samples at the end of the
tour. They do have good lemonade for kids and beer-haters like Debbie.
The rest of us can have a sample of Alexander Keith's India Pale ale.
They
serve it in these green mugs which they sell in the gift shop. The
tours
run every half-hour. Debbie and I really enjoyed the tour and the beer
is pretty good too. Here I am raising a toast with Alexander Keith.

Bluenose II

This is the Bluenose II -
the
national tallship of Canada. It's a 161-foot ship (twice the length of
the Mar II). The mainmast is 126 feet high. It has an 18 person crew.
Mostly
young men and women cadets (18 to 24 yr. olds). She has the largest
working
mainsail in the world (I guess that's the big one in the back). It's
picture
is on the back of Canadian dimes (I guess they ran out of animals to
put
on their money). This is a promotion photo (I can't take credit for
it).
It is usually in Lunenburg, but it came to Halifax on the last day we
were
there.

They sell only 35 tickets for the days sailing and you have to be in
line
by 8:00 in the morning. So since it was our last day
in Halifax, we got
up early and got down to the dock by 7:40. We were the last two they
sold
tickets too. I guess it was our lucky day. The weather was cool and
clear.
It was our 5th trip out on the water.

Don't we look nautical - you can just picture Debbie with a parrot on
her
shoulder. We had a great 2-hour cruise. In the picture, you can see
Halifax in the distance. On the way back into the
harbor,
we saw a whale (no, not me - a real whale).

Eating
in Halifax

To
celebrate our trip and Debbie getting to see a whale we went to McKelvie's
Restaurant (1680 Lower Water Street) for lobsters. We actually ate
in a different place every night. They serve a lot of fish as you can
imagine.
This made Debbie happy (I had a lot of Fish & Chips). This was my
first
full lobster (1 and 1/2 pounds) and will probably be my last. It
was OK (actually Debbie said it was great, cooked just right), but I
just
don't see what the fuss is all about. They wanted me to go back to the
tank and pick one out. I refused. There was no way I was going to pick
the one to be condemned.

Other places we ate at and can recommend is Murphy's
on the Water, which is on a pier on the waterfront. We had a great
lunch here next to the harbor. They also run a number of harbor cruises
from their pier. Salty's
Restaurant is another one next to the water. Downstairs is the bar
and grill while upstairs they have a nice restaurant. The upstairs,
which
you most likely will need reservations for is much nicer. Candle lit
tables
overlooking the harbor. Debbie and I really enjoyed our visit here.

One night, we were in the mood for steaks so
we
went to Ryan
Duffy's Restaurant Bar and Grill (5640 Spring Garden Rd - it's not
near the waterfront). This place was very interesting. They are famous
for their steaks. They select and cut the steaks at your table and you
pay whatever the weight is. They also make caesar salads at your table
too. You can select what you want in the salad (hold the anchovies,
please).
The dessert wasn't bad either. Try the chocolate decadence (Debbie
did!).
This is another place I would recommend getting reservations to.

We got a lot of sun, as you
can
see, we are
starting to resemble our dinner.

Peggy's
Cove

While we were in Nova Scotia, we rented a car and spent
a day driving
south of
Halifax.
We went to Peggy's Cove, Mahone Bay and Lunenburg.

We first stopped in the little fishing village of Peggy's
Cove. It has a population of around 46. It's about 10 miles
southwest of Halifax on rt. 333. It is
described,
and rightfully so, as a photographers paradise. I easily shot over a
roll
of film here.

The town is built on a rocky
landscape called Chebucto
Peninsula that juts
into the
Atlantic Ocean. The
village marks the eastern point of St.
Margaret's Bay. The
first recorded name of the cove was Eastern Point Harbour or Peggs
Harbour in 1766. The village may have been named after the wife of an
early settler or taken its name from St. Margaret's Bay as it marks the
eastern beginning of the Bay and Peggy is a nickname for Margaret. Two
versions of the popular legend claim that the name came from the sole
survivor of a shipwreck at Halibut Rock near the cove. Artist and resident
William
deGarthe said she was a
young woman while others claim she was a little girl too young to
remember her name and the family who adopted her called her Peggy. In both versions, the young
shipwreck survivor married a resident of the cove and became known as
"Peggy of the Cove" attracting visitors from around the bay who
eventually named the village, Peggy's Cove, after her nickname.

The village was formally founded in 1811 when
the Province of Nova Scotia issued a land grant of more than 800 acres
to six families of German
descent. The settlers
relied on fishing as the mainstay of their economy but also farmed
where the soil was fertile. They used surrounding lands to pasture
cattle. In the early 1900's the population peaked at about 300. The
community supported a schoolhouse, church, general store, lobster
cannery and boats of all sizes that were nestled in the Cove. From its
inception, the community's economy revolved around the fishery,
however, tourism began to overtake fishing in economic importance
following the Second
World War.To keep its rustic appearence, they are very carefull not to allow
any development and even to decide who can live. Since we visited in
2001, Hurricane Bill in 2009 damaged some of the buildings including
the giftshop we had lunch in.

It is not a town with streets and sidewalks. It has
just
one main road in and out of the town. It was pleasant walking around the
town (more like a
village).
They have their lobster traps all stacked up on the docks next to the
fishing
boats. There are
small houses spread out
along this road and on a few side roads. There is a large
restaurant/tourist
gift shop here. The food is all right but unless your real hungry
or
want to be able to say you had lunch in Peggy's Cove, you could skip it.

This is the lighthouse at Peggy's Cove. The red-and-white lighthouse is still operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. You have to walk out onto the
granite rocks
to get there. The
first lighthouse at Peggys Cove was built in 1868 and was a wooden
house with a beacon on the roof. At sundown the keeper lit a kerosene
oil lamp magnified by a catoptric reflector (a silver-plated mirror)
creating the red beacon light marking the eastern entrance to St.
Margarets Bay. That lighthouse was replaced by the current structure,
an octagonal lighthouse which was built in 1914. It is made of
reinforced concrete but retains the eight-sided shape of earlier
generations of wooden light towers. It stands almost 50 ft. high.
The old wooden lighthouse became the keeper’s dwelling and remained
near to the current lighthouse until it was damaged by Hurricane Ednain 1954 and was removed. The
lighthouse was automated in 1958. Since then, the red light was changed
to white light, then to a green light in the late 1970s. Since we
visited it was changed to red in 2007 to conform to world standards .

They have a post office inside
interestingly enough (the post office was closed in November of 2009).
I
got
a great shot here in the late afternoon (above). This is one of the
most
photographed places in all of Canada. As you can see, it is very windy
there.

They say it gets very cold in the winter. The Atlantic tide runs about 4 to
6 feet. The ocean temperature ranges between 50 to 60 degrees
Fahrenheit in the summer and falls to between 33 to 40 degrees
Fahrenheit in the winter. The ocean moderates the air temperature over
the land year round.
Because of the Labrador Current from the north and the Gulf Stream from
the south pass each other here, Peggy's Cove gets and interesting
collection of Artic and tropical fish.

Just outside of Peggy's Cove is
the Swiss Air Flight 111
Memorial.
On the night of September 22, 1998, a Swiss Air MD-11 from Newark to
Zurich
crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about five miles off the coast of Nova
Scotia near Peggy's Cove killing all on board. There are signs
directing you to the memorial
which is right off the road near the ocean. We stopped for a visit. The stone monument reads in English
and French: "In memory of the 229 men, women and children aboard
Swissair Flight 111 who perished off these shores September 2nd, 1998.
They have been joined to the sea, and the sky. May they rest in peace."

Lunenburg

We then drove to Mahone Bay and finally to Lunenburg,
which is about 57 miles south of Halifax on Rt. 103. If you get a
chance,
it's definitely worth the visit. It's an old picturesque town of about
2,000 people that was
built back in 1753. It was a British town (the 2nd
in Nova Scotia
after Halifax) that was
settled by Germans and Swiss. They came during the same wave of
immigration that produced the Pennsylvania Dutch. They were "Foreign Protestants"
encouraged by the British to settle in the area. During the American Revolution, Colonial
priveteers attacked the town twice, once in 1775 and again in 1782,
looting and burning parts of the town.
<>
The town itself
has
been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List by the United Nations.
There
are only two cities in North America so designated (the other is Quebec
City). They have a beautiful waterfront and the town itself is
full
of old houses, painted a lot of interesting colors (or as they say in
Canada
- colours). They do a lot of
fishing here (as you can see). A number of restaurants, inns,
hotels and shops exist to service the tourist trade including the Fisheries
Museum of the Atlantic. It is
also the homebase of the Bluenose II. If you were
wondering,
Lunenburg was named after the German Duke of Braunschweig-Luneburg (now
there is a title) who was also crowned King George II of England.
Debbie did a nice job with this picture. Of course, she had good
material
to work with (I was referring to the scenery of course). The town is
getting more exposure recently with a series of Cisco Systems
commercials featuring Canadian actress Ellen Page.